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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Chill of the Throne for DPS

A week or two ago I was reading a typical Moonkin related thread on the damage dealer forums and I was struck by this quote from Murmurs:

As excited as I was when I saw ICC gear with all of it's lovely Crit/Haste pieces and no Spirit, I'm now very, very disturbed. Come the end of ICC, and especially for any Balance Druid that is in a guild able to do Heroic content, we'll be running with over 1,000 Critical Strike Rating and over 1,000 Haste Rating. Using Wrath is already annoying for me right now when I have barely over 400 Haste, I simply cannot fathom using the spell when I literally end up with double my current Haste value. 0.5 second Wraths during Heroism is pointless, it's worthless, and it's hurting.

While I am not as pessimistic Murmurs sounds, I do agree with the sentiment 100%. We will soon be juggling 3 different caps while most Caster DPS classes only have to deal with the traditional Hit Cap.

How we got to this point is well documented. The Haste cap is the result of an overpowered Nature's Grace talent. This is one of the few times where players and Blizzard agree that a talent needs to be nerfed. The Lunar Crit cap is a result of an Eclipse talent gone wild. Blizzard hasn't said so out right, but many players think that this talent will also be nerfed in Cataclysm.

The third cause of this situation is also well documented, but not from a Moonkin or even a DPS perspective. When Blizzard first planned WotLK out they didn't plan on gear getting to the 277 iLevel, but the implementation of hard modes made it necessary to some extent. This caused there to be significant stat inflation, and was particularly evident in the rating stats like Crit and dodge. One of the Key reasons we are approaching the the Lunar Crit cap is because of the shear quantity of Crit rating and Intelligence that can be found on gear. One of the main reasons we struggle with the Hit cap is because you can get single items with close to 100 Hit rating on them.

This issue was so significant in tanking stats that Blizzard implemented a temporary solution called Chill of the Throne. It is a raid wide debuff that reduces the players dodge chance by 20%. When I read Murmur's quote above I was struck with an idea. Why couldn't/shouldn't Chill of the Throne have an impact on DPS stats as well?

I'm NOT Suggesting a Nerf

Before I get flamed, I want to point out that I am not suggesting a nerf. Blizzard implemented Chill of the Throne to smooth out the damage tanks take, not increase it. So, while they are technically nerfing the tanks avoidance in ICC they can also lower the damage dealt by the bosses. Theoretically the two nerfs should net to zero change but make for a more manageable raid.

By the same token, if Blizzard reduced our rating stats with a debuff similar to Chill of the Throne, I would expect a similar nerf to the bosses health. For example, if the net impact of the debuff was to reduce our DPS by 15%, I would expect a 15% nerf to the bosses Health as well. The two changes should net to zero so that the overall fight remains the same.

How it Would Help

Here is what I'm suggesting. What if Chill of the Throne also reduced your chance to Hit, chance to crit, and your haste by 5%?

Let me use an example. As an Alliance Moonkin I need just 237 Hit rating to be over the hit cap. If I have access to the heroic gear from ICC I can reach the Hit cap with just 3 items. With the Tier Legs and gloves at the 277 iLevel, and the exalted Rep ring I would have a total of 239 Hit rating. To make matters worse, this is really the only way to be close to the hit cap without gems or enchants. Most other gear configurations would put you significantly over or under the cap. If Chill of the Throne impacted your chance to hit you would need another 131 Hit rating to be capped. This would make it possible for you to utilized more of the gear available from ICC, because as it stands now, I ignore pretty much everything with Hit on it.

A side benefit to needing more Hit Rating is that it will indirectly reduce the amount of Haste rating, Crit rating, and Spirit you pick up. The additional itemization will have to come at the expense of one of the other stats.

If you look at it from the point of view of Haste or Crit the results are similar. I am already over the haste cap with very little gear from ICC. I would love for 164 more points of my haste to have a full impact rather than just the first 400. If I needed another 230 Crit rating to get to the Crit cap that would probably put it out of reach in all but the most extreme situations.

I know that a lot of you will disagree with me, but I'm starting to think that Chill of the Throne didn't go far enough.

As a moonkin that is already at 1006 crit and 550 haste rating, I agree that nearly every item is becoming only a minor upgrade, because every stat is just worth so little.

However, I also think that that suggested debuff would cause a huge uproar in the community - about virtually nothing, admittedly, but the gain for Blizzard would also be quite small. (Hardly any other specc has such a problem.) Thus I doubt they'll do it.

I agree with most of the post, but I do not believe that a "nerf" via chill of the throne is an (en)viable solution.

First, the debuff is already, for tanks at least, the equivalent of using a poster to cover a hole in the wall without solving the underlying issue, and as such I don't think it is a trend worth continuing.

Secondly, making raiders have to use a second set of gear for ICC would cause a whole other set of problems, especially so for druids who are already often carrying gear for multiple specs+pvp gear.

And finally, all things being equal, I like seeing my numbers growing, not shrinking.A nerf to NG could be a potential solution, but then you would need to compensate resto druids for it somehow, as it in my experience is a godsend when spamhealing a tank on low hp.

One possibility that comes to my mind is changing the NG bonus to spellpower. It would be a simple solution to wrath's GCD problems while not weakening the talent for resto druids.

You know, a Chill of the Throne debuff that reduced our crit ratings wouldn't have been too surprising.

Reducing hit rating would've been more of a nuisance than anything since one would have to be hit capped for ICC but then change their gear setup for lower tier content. But I guess I could play devil's advocate and just say since it's lower tier content that it's easy and doesn't matter...

Another way to circumvent stat inflation are with trinkets/weapons like Nibelung and Reign of the Dead/Unliving since these items don't have extra crit/haste rating. Instead a proc makes up for the lost stats. Of course Nibelung has to be buffed slightly in order to be more viable but I can easily see Nibelung becoming BiS since it will effectively reduce our haste/crit ratings.

Items like these are actually good for classes such as Moonkins that have a small opportunity cost for losing stats like crit/haste since their value diminishes as our gear gets better.

"The Haste cap is the result of an overpowered Nature's Grace talent."

Nature's Grace is one of the quite good talents (some think it's too good), but i think the problem is Starlight Wrath, because it's too powerfull for Wrath. Blizzard should nerf the part for Wrath to -0.25sec (5/5) and buff other parts like our much too weak dots (wtf, u need 2-3 glyphs for integrating them into our rotation^^).

But what was Blizz doing? They buff Eclipse once again and push moonkins to their next soft-cap, the Lunar soft-crit-cap. Thats so stupid.

I saw so much good suggestions for buffing moonkins and avoid reaching the softcaps, but all were ignored. With ICC-25 heroic loot moonkins will fall back again and will need another buff. And i promise, it will be Eclipse yet another time, if Blizz decides to buff mks again.

I am not sure I totally agree with these solutions, and I'm not sure I even agree that reaching the GCD on Wrath is a "problem", or that reaching the haste/hit/crit caps is a "problem".

I think the only reason people view it as a problem is that it seems like a wall that keeps you from progressing further from a dps standpoint. If we look at it only from that point of view, comparing ourselves to other classes, then it seems like a problem.

I would of course love to get more out of haste over 400, would love to have a Wrath cast time then went under 1 second, etc...but in reality, I have seen myself becoming the highest dps in almost every raid situtation, especially boss fights. So even though moonkin have lower stat valuations because we are so close to or over the caps for our most valued stats, it seems our dps is almost overpowered anyway, so I'm not sure it makes any differnce in the end.

Now, the thing I'd most like to see change is for boomkin to have more and better CC and burst dps options so we can compete better in short fights, fights where we have to move a lot, and in pvp. I think that is more important at the moment. PVE is not a problem for moonkin at this point, and therefore I just feel and think that these GCD and cap issues aren't really a big deal when you look at the end result - downing bosses in the end content of ICC.

I am looking forward to what changes are in store for moonkin in the upcoming Cataclysm exapansion. I hope they finally give us an instant cast high dps burst damage spell of some kind, even if it is on some kind of reasonable cooldown.

As op as NG might be, I think the real problem is having 2 primary nukes with such a huge gap in cast time. a 1.5 sec. cast primary nuke is going to have haste problems pretty much no matter what at high end gear levels, NG just exacerbates that problem.

I think Chill of the Throne affecting crit would make the most sense since classes benefit from haste very unevenly and having it affect hit would either be a major annoyance (switching between separate hit sets for ICC and everything else) or wouldn't really achieve the desired result (people would just throw on a hit trink and be done with it).

Great post, I have been thinking about this for a very long time, and after having used Rawr. What will happen when we have about 1000 haste rating? I too can't stand casting wrath with about 500 haste, which is why I really like your idea about the Chill of the Throne.

I agree, and all this crit rating can sneak up on you. Beginning in ToC I had about 23% crit in caster form. I've always favored crit, and longed to have something closer to the 40% that our mages had.

Fast forward to now, I've been lucky enough to have the T10 gloves and shoulders, a new OH, two rings, boots and Muradin's Spyglass from ICC. Suddenly I'm at nearly 31% crit in caster form, and in Moonkin form it's about 36.5% We don't have an elemental shaman, but occasionally I get Focus Magic and I am in heaven.

My haste however, I still consider low, it's around 480, which still puts my wrath casts at 1.25 seconds. We are in a tricky place right now, I wish we had another spell to cast with a longer base time.

I don't think a raid-wide debuff would suit every class, but there can certainly be boss mechanics that do something similar.

"..within a end-game guild, I am somewhere around 10-15, like 1000-1500 behind tops. And I am in the top 3 Moonkins of the server."

"We just CANT compete for top spots, its a fact."

I, too, am in an end-game raiding guild. We're currently second on the server, and I'm the number one geared Druid on the realm. I would say that your response to our DPS being overpowered was exaggerated, or just situational in the least.

On most boss fights, and those are the only fights that matter when comparing DPS between classes (imo), I place either third (behind the two overpowered Arcane Mages), or I'm topping the meter (I'll admit that I barely just top the meter most of the times, and am usually very closely followed by the mages, rogues, and hunters). It's only on those rare fights that require tons of movement, which screws over Eclipse procs, etc, that I see myself falling lower (7-12ish).

I don't think we're overpowered, nor are we particularly underpowered. We only seem so when compared to the classes that frequent the top of the meters. Arcane Mages come to mind...

I definately agree that our caps are starting to get slightly rediculous, but i dont think its quite as bad as you think.

I've been in some recent arguments with folks in my guild, to the point where ive been yelled at by the GM and told to shut my mouth when discussing boomkin stats/strategy.

Heres my argument: Once we finally do hit this lunar soft cap, we can finally stop worrying about "Do i want crit or haste."

Once we hit 400 haste, its useless for wrath, yet its still amazing for starfire. Once we hit around 1000 crit, its useless for starfire, but amazing for wrath.

Far too often are boomkins worrying about something that only really effects us 50% of the time. Big deal if our starfires are over 100% crit. Think of the bonus wrath still gets. We will have an even higher uptime of lunar eclipse from more crits with wrath, and when we reach that point, its going to be 15 seconds of 20k+ crit spamming frenzy with starfire. Not to mention that our haste will be nearing 1000.

I've forseen this happening for a long time, but anytime i brought it up, I was told to stop causing commotion in the guild and to stop my nonsense.

We're hitting our soft caps in ICC, regardless of whether we want to or not. But that does not mean its useless to us or needs a nerf, or a change, or anything. Haste will always be amazing for starfire. Crit will always be amazing for wrath. We're finally reaching the point to where we will be "balanced" so we dont have to pick one over the other.

I'll play your game for a bit, please don't take this the wrong way, it's just for fun...

Not sure who you raid with, but if you're 10-15 out of 25 on a raid boss, then you might need to improve somehow, maybe you need better gear, better gemming, better individual skill, maybe your computer has a lot of lag (can be a huge dps loss), but you shouldn't be 10-15 out of 25 if you're doing everything optimally. I'm in no way questioning your skill as a player, but that just seems a little odd to me. I'd think you'd be way higher on the dps chart than that. Maybe you run with 10 perfectly geared specced mages?

Ok, game over :)

I myself am in a 10 man horde guild. We don't do 25 mans (this isn't my choice, just how our leaders decided to run things for less drama and to have a closer knit group). We do try to get in on some 25 man pugs, but they are horrible affairs (bad leadership, immature people with no teamwork) and have been a huge headache and waste of time. On our server, Blade's Edge, the Horde is in the minority, so getting good mature skilled people with good teamwork skills is very very hard. So when I talk about my dps being in the top spots on boss fights, I am not talking about 5 man pugs, I am talking about end game raiding lvl boss fights. I am talking about running with other highly geared, skilled people with good teamwork. I am not in the number 1 spot every time, but the number one spot is usually me (moonkin) or a mage or a rogue.

I would assume that 25 man raiding guilds will have more classes and more specs in representation, so a moonkin in those guilds might not be in the top 3 spots, but should I think still be in the top 5-8 spots. If you're only in the 10-15 range in dps, then I'm not sure what to tell you to be honest. So I think your comments are kinda off base really in relation to questioning my dps or who I run with. It would be better to stick to the topic at hand.

This thread is about reaching our caps and having less room to grow, which seems like a problem. The suggestion that adding a caster dps debuff to the existing Chill of the Throne in ICC is an idea to deal with our plight as moonkin, ie - we are at most of our caps with GCD, Haste, Crit, etc...

But my thought is that even if we are at or near all of our stat caps, which is not the case with other classes like it is with moonkin, that we are still doing amazing dps and are not useless or gimped when it comes to end game raiding. So it really doesn't matter if we're at the caps or not. Moonkins are doing great in any case. Yeah, we'd like to see it be different, but we're stuck with this reality until the next expansion comes out. And it's a good reality in my opinion.

I could be missing something (new to this more hardcore, detailed analysis of the class), but what about ditching Imp FF? Put the points somewhere else, then you'll need more hit on your gear, as you were asking for, without a change from Blizz. I was thinking about doing this myself as hit is giving me fits right now (over cap, having a hard time getting pieces w/o it). I've just started ICC 10, so I'm an endish raider and still having to pug a lot due to guild issues.

Seriously? Comparing 10 man runs to 25 man content? If you are only running 10 mans, your gear is below par for the most part. I too like to think I'm the best gear'd moonkin on my server and finishing higher than 8th in DPS is very rare. In fact, if I'm in the top 5 then we didn't bring the boss down. It's real life stats where the big boys play. We aren't made to be the top dogs (birds), and I'm ok with that. Bring your gear to 25 man content and you'll be lucky to break the top 15.

In response to Monday, I do like the idea of Nature's Grace bonus being changed to spell power from haste.

It brings some interesting scenarios.It would still be quite easy to gear to GCD min wrath cast, but it could end up leading to really bad 25-30k or more starfires which could give agro issues. Either early on in fights, or any fight where an add spawns in the middle of a lunar eclipse and requires immediate dps nuking.

As far as resto side effects go, I don't think any good resto druid has a reason to pick up nature's grace. At the new haste cap with 5/5 of the new GotEM, a Nourish cast is at, or damn near, 1sec and Regrowth is decently under 1.5 sec. I think it would probably end up leading to more "nerf Nourish" conversations.

I do like the NG spell power idea though. You can never cap on spell power. I thought the glyph solution to increase cast time and damage on wrath suggested by someone else was a good idea as well.

I wonder if there could also be an idol solution for wrath. Instead of our stacking crit, maybe do something like each time a dot ticks, your spell haste is reduced by 2% and your spell power is increased by 1%, stacking 5 times?

Who knows...Boomkin dps is certainly going to be a problem in high end gear though. We will be on the bottom of the charts considering all other casters scale to the stat's full potential if they pick up 1 haste or 1 crit, but we only fully benefit on half of our rotation, and the other half is wasted.

I'm not quite to the point where I am greatly affected by it as I was on hiatus for quite some time and my gear fell behind, but doing the gear math it is quite easy to see how the hit cap can be reached with a few pieces of gear and that leaves us stacking crit and haste in excess.

That being said I agree with most of the sentiments echoed here - it is a problem but the proposed fix would just make for an annoying scenario where we had to have one set for ICC and another set for outside raids. The 20% dodge effect on tanks works because just about any ICC-ready tank would have above 20% dodge to begin with and dodge is not a binary effect - more is always good, albeit it gets less good. Hit rating however is a binary effect - it's great until a point, and then it's useless. Juggling around one hit cap is annoying enough, and even though it is easier to reach the cap with the gear available now having two hit caps to juggle just doesn't sound like my cup of tea.

I'm not sure how other classes are affected by the current inflation in stats.

I've seen some rumblings from Elemental Shaman about getting close to the caps, and I think every caster class has issues with the Hit Cap.

That said I think it is fair to say that Moonkin are probably affected more then any other class.

@ Zeplar and the other people that comment on having two sets of gear.

Good point, I hadn't really concedered the fact that you would need different hit levels for different instances. However, after some thought I don't think it is that big of a deal.

If you're geared to take on ICC then you are over geared for all of the other instances. Having some of your stats wasted on Hit probably wouldn't be that big of a deal, except for the first few weeks of gearing up.

@Heezashee

It is really hard to say how big of a problem this is, but it is a problem. The issue is scaling. After we reach the caps we won't benifit from Crit or Haste as well as other classes do. This wouldn't be a problem if everyone had the same caps, but that doesn't seem to be the issue.

@Askevar

Another good point, I hadn't really thought about this from a tanks perspective. Losing 20% dodge doesn't really do anything to me, but losing Hit, Crit, and Haste will affect how a tank generates threat.

@MithicoftheDawn

True, I never said Haste or Crit were useless after the caps, but their values are deminished. As I said above it will hurt how we scale relative to other classes.

First of all, I am really disappointed in your attitude. You think just because my guild only does 10 man raids that I'm not one of the "big boys"? You think you're better than I am just because you are doing 25 man content and have that lvl of gear? Come on man, grow up. My gear (designed by Blizzard) is appropriate for 10 man raiding content. If I went on a 25 man raid, of course I wouldn't reach the dps numbers of other moonkin decked out in 25 man gear. So suggesting to me that I do so is just you showing how immature you are and how big your ego is, and how unconstructive your comments are in general. Please stick to the topic of disussion and quit trolling people, please. If you're sad that you can't be in the top dps spots in 25 man raids, stop doing 25 mans and start doing 10 mans and you can make yourself feel like a "big dog" :P

Thanks :)

@ Graylo...

Yeah, I think Blizzard got themselves in a bind in their design process. But they've made some crude fixes to compensate (increasing spellpower from spirit, creating a huge 2T8 bonus, giving us a double eclipse, etc). By the end of each expansion, I would guess that it is their philosophy to come close to the caps, but not to actually reach them, although if this assumption is correct, they failed with moonkin in Wrath in that respect. But in the endgame, moonkin dps is exactly where they want it to be, even though we reached several stat caps. I would view it as a serious problem if our dps wasn't where they wanted it and they made no corrections to fix it. But we'll never know exactly what they want. I do 100% agree though that our stats losing value at endgame lvls is not something I want Blizz to continue doing. But for now at least it seems that this is something they are willing to accept because they think our dps is good enough to do the job. I would suggest that 25 man geared raiders get more of a shaft with scaling than 10 man geared raiders. It's assumed, and probly correctly so, that they are going to fix this with Cataclysm. It will be very interesting to see what they implement.

One question for you, as so many people have been flaming me because I'm not in a 25 man raiding guild, what is normal dps for ICC bosses (so far) for moonkin? Currently, as the only moonkin in my 10 man guild, not using any dps addons of any kind, I range from about 6k to 7+k dps on bossfights, and I have come close to 8k several times when the stars aligned and I got a perfect starting rotation with trinkets and eclipse from the very start and didn't have to move or rez or anything else. What range of dps do 25 man raiding moonkin do? Where do you come in on the dps chart on average out of 25? 1-5? 5-10? 10-15? Just curious to know...

I think you raised a good point about hit. I love to hit 100% of the time of course, but now I am thinking from your comments that it's too easy to reach the hit cap for moonkin, and maybe no class should ever have 100% hit. Maybe there should alwasys be a 1-3% chance to miss no matter what for same or higher lvl bosses/mobs. I know it is harder for other classes to reach their hit caps, but for us moonkin it does lead to stat inflation on the rest of our gear. If we had a higher hit cap, we'd not be reaching the huge numbers of both crit and haste from our gear.

"Maybe there should always be a 1-3% chance to miss no matter what for same or higher lvl bosses/mobs."

This used to be the case pre-WotLK, when spells always had at least 1% chance to be resisted no matter how much +hit you had. Unfortunately, this resistance applied to all spells, not just straight DPS nukes.

Resisted Fireball or Shadowbolt = DPS loss.Resisted Banish or Polymorph = A couple of people killed by a mob that broke loose.Resisted taunt or interrupt = Most likely a wipe.

@Heezashee: It's hard to compare dps right now because there really isn't a very good fight for it. But if we take Saurfang, which imo benefits melee.

6-7k dps would not put you within top 10 for us, and most of the time not within top 15. Generally speaking all our melee do 8k+ with certain classes consistently at around 10k. With their recent buffs, shadow priests also seem to kick some serious ass, while previously I could beat them with ease.

I'm not trying to compare dps between 10 man and 25 man raids, just was trying to find out what moonkin dps is in 25 gear/skill/raid. I am quite aware my dps in 10 man gear is not going to put me on par with a 25 man raider. I just wanted to know numbers of 25 man geared dps, most specifically, moonkin dps in 25 man raid gear at this moment in time in the game.

But from what you are saying, I am assuming that 25 man geared caster dps (assuming you are including moonkin) would be around 10k? If so, that would seem reasonable to me considering the gear difference.

In relation to the topic Graylo proposed, the Chill of the Throne debuff affecting dps classes and not just the tanks, that would be a "dps loss", and therefore by your comments regarding hit, this would be unacceptable. There are already other ways in which we lose dps - moving, being stunned, silenced, webwrapped, knockback, etc, so why don't we get rid of those too?

Because it makes the game fun to be challenged. If everything went perfectly everytime, we'd all stop playing pretty quickly. We want to to be successful enough to do the content, but we need something to strive for to keep us engaged with the content. I think a certain amount of "imperfection" such as having a chance to miss or any small dps loss from any spell or fight mechanic, makes us try harder and adds some gamble to mix, which is inherently interesting and challenging, and fun, if balanced correctly.

Maybe Blizz reduced that challenge by spoiling us to always hit every time. That didn't stop raids from being successfully completed. It didn't keep people from participating in raid content. It was part of the game and people accepted it. Now, we've gotten used to hitting all the time on bosses if we are at our hitcap. I'm just suggesting that maybe they shouldn't have changed it to 100%. Maybe we should go back to those days where 1% chance to miss was the norm, but also give bosses a chance to miss as well.

I'm not saying it "needs" to be changed back the way it used to be, just that we've been spoiled now and we don't wanna give it up.

Maybe the problem was putting hit on gear. Maybe it should have just been a talent only, or maybe just a value stat that increased with lvl.

Anyway, as we all know, things are going to change in Cataclysm as far as stats go (talents, gear, etc) but from what I've read, they like hit on gear and making us make that choice of gear once we reach the cap, so hit is probly here to stay for the forseeable future.

Overall though, I think I'm happy with hit the way it's currently implemented. But if there's a better way to do it then I hope Blizz will find it and change it.

But I still don't think adding a dps reduction to the CotT debuff in ICC is needed. To play devil's advocate though, if it was implemented into the game, we'd all still complete the content and have fun just as we've been doing, and that' all that really matters in the end to me. I'll play Blizz's games regardless.

instant wide ICC debuff:This would be a solution but...1. only a solution for this specific instance2. it changes the existing class balance, we would make a relative jump forward. I am sure all classes not capped or close to cap will whine.

@Beartoucher said..."In response to Monday, I do like the idea of Nature's Grace bonus being changed to spell power from haste."

The problem with this idea is: you need to adapt the value of NG all the time. If you change NG to a fixed amount of SP it will be overpowered at the beginning and underpowered at the end. -->Unpredictable shift in class balance.If you use a percentage of total SP it will most prolly tend to crack the class balance too.

However, it will solve the basic problem.

I personally favor the idea to change stats on leather gear:If Blizzard would significantly increase SP and reduces Haste/Spirit on ICC gear we are good to go and could scale in the same amount as other classes do.This is the way with the least side-effects till cataclysm.